Yeah and then the Covet I think. Which makes it the car that's gone the longest with only maybe one change.
the covet's had quite a few changes over the years. when the 200bx was released, it got the slightly higher poly engine model from the 200bx, then later when the pickup, roamer, and fullsize got proper badging, it also gained the DX, DXi, LXi, ZXi, etc trims, rather than "base", "sport" and "race" trims. then of course more recently it's had a couple of rounds of body reshaping, things like curved pillars and a narrower rear end.
The Covet went largely unchanged until recently a few years back. It got overhauled into heck and back.
I believe we are both working towards the same thought process, albeit in different ways. We all know that BeamNG did promise the full game to early investors, much the same way that a company will do for initial stock prices. The initial price will be low, because the company does not have much to offer, but as the company grows (and the company becomes worth more) the shareholder still retains that percentage of the company. If they release DLC's that the early investors have to purchase seperately, they are no longer providing the full game. Instead, they would be telling the shareholder "yes, you're going to have to pay more money to retain your 5% of the company, because we decided you only have 4% now." I think Harkin also hit on this point when he pointed out that merchandise might be the best solution. We, the customers, have been promised the whole game, but if they release paid merchandise, that isn't against our agreement, and as the community grows, there will certainly be a market there. Especially once Career mode is revealed, there will be a lot of content to make revenue off of outside of the game. I would also like to point out that the development has been funded for 7 years by the people who don't care if it has career mode or not, so either it doesn't take much support to keep the team funded, or the game is currently growing enough, even before career mode is implemented. Career mode will turn BeamNG from a cool program with a good community to a great game with a following, and I do believe this will provide more revenue.
It isn't analogous to stocks at all. I don't buy 1% of Apple when I buy an iPhone, I buy a product. I don't expect my iPhone purchase to come out with every accessory Apple makes at any point in the future, especially unforeseen and unnecessary completely optional accessories that don't change my experience without owning it. If I buy an iPhone X and 7 years later they come out with a iPhone X case, I don't expect to get that case included with my $1000 iPhone purchase. If it was a software updated that I actually needed then yes I would feel entitled to it, but there's a huge difference between that and an optional accessory. That's exactly what BeamNG.Drive and hypothetical DLC are. It's a product made by a company that we all prepurchased, and we are getting what we bought whether or not they decide to add optional extras, which would in no way detract from the experience of owning the game if they existed and were not owned compared to if they do not exist. I expect reasonable service and updates for my iPhone and if something comes along in the future that is "necessary" then I certainly would hope it to be included with my purchase, but not if it's just some random accessory that is in no way necessary. Let's take an example... The Bruckell Albatross was a concept list car which the devs have repeatedly told us to not expect in the game's development. We all paid $15-$25 for this game, it comes to full release with no hope of the Albatross, and so on. In 2024 or so, well after the game is "finished" (let's see how well that one ages...) the devs decide that they could afford the resources to make the Albatross if they charge $5 for it as a DLC, but they can't afford to work for free since the 11 year old game isn't bringing in enough capital for such an investment (at 9 months for an official car with multiple professional artists & engineers, we are talking about a big expense). So option A, they do not release paid DLC and the Albatross never gets released, and we all end up with the full base game and nothing more. Option B, they release it as a paid DLC and those who are willing to pay get more content than they otherwise would, and those who do not end up on option A anyway. Nothing was taken from them, nothing was changed for them, the value of what they own has not changed compared to option A. The existence of the hypothetical Albatross DLC doesn't make the base game worth any less, it is exactly what it was and would have been regardless. No one is forced to pay extra to keep what they bought. Of course seeing DLC extend the 2013 game indefinitely isn't realistic either, but the extra income could be used to support growth opposed to longevity. Perhaps the extra income could allow the team to add 3 vehicle/map team devs that they otherwise couldn't budget for, and therefore create more content in the same time, just with some of it being paid extra (or go the Automation route and charge a ton of money for a small thing as a supporter special... That doesn't usually work out in examples I can think of though). Obviously I am assuming DLC would be done "right" and not in a predatory way, but as I mentioned before there is no reasonable fear of BeamNG using predatory tactics. If they were the sort of company to do that, they would have already resorted to it. I think you are severely underestimating how many people have already bought BeamNG, and it's not like these consumers have any more consumer grade BeamNG products to drop their money on... Filtering this page by racing tags, it is only behind GTA V. Overall it's 101st top selling if I counted correctly (Not even filtering for only games since BeamNG isn't tagged as a "game" on that page. So it includes DLC, software, preorders, etc...), putting it ahead of every Fallout game, Cities Skylines, Civ 6, the Sims 4, etc... Terraria is the only game that's older and ranks higher. They seem to be doing very well right now, but with sales numbers so high on a game so old I really don't see magic happening for career mode, especially since it's likely to be a slower rollout opposed to dropping a finished release in a way that's easy to market. Even if I am wrong and they do get a massive sales boost from it, that's still only one sales boost from a game that came out in 2013. What happens after that? They definitely have good financial support right now, but the only consumer product they have right now is a single 7 year old $20 product, that just isn't sustainable no matter how you cut it. Also, the team is over 50 people and we are talking about a fair number of professional artists and engineers in there, plus an office that needs some expensive computing equipment. This is not cheap to sustain at all.
I'm definitely down for BeamNG merch. Oh, will we ever get another dev q&a session? the last one was almost 5 years ago.
I'm still a bit annoyed they've only done it for video competition winner... Some resin scale models would be great too, and very easy to produce.
I'm skeptical about a DLC system. I personnaly would buy all the if it's reasonnably price because I love this game and I want to support the devs, but I don't think this will be a nice way for other player that only play a bit. I think maybe some "cosmetic" DLC like in ETS 2 for example with maybe a special config of the car of some extra part would be nice, because only player that plays a lot would "needs" it, and regular player would still have all the cars to play with. A DLC system is a double-edge sword, it really depend on how the dev would implement it.
I specifically used the Albatross here because it is rather redundant with content in the base game. It seems like it was intended to be an American fullsized body on frame 1960's/1970's personal luxury coupe, which also more or less describes the both the Bruckell Moonhawk and the Bluebuck Marshall. It's not really a big deal to not have it in the base game, compared to something like the Civetta Fulmine which would be incredibly unique in the roster.
It's not analogous to an iPhone and a case because of the way Apple works. Apple purposely promises nothing, because that's part of their predatory strategy. On the contrary, the team has promised us that we will recieve continual and complete updates to the game. Perhaps stocks are a bad analogy, becasue we do not own parts of BeamNG gmbh, so I'll try to compare it to other softwares. We all bought Windows some time ago, and most of us did not even buy 10. Microsoft promised that they would provide security and feature updates continually, and they have, even upgrading people from 7 to 10 at no cost. I can see the objection that Microsoft Office might be a DLC, but this is not a part of Windows, and is instead a seperate product. Making additional features/parts of the game a DLC would be like making the ability to have desktop pictures and customized colors a DLC. Additionally, I do understand the popularity this game has, as I looked at that just the other day, which is why I support the idea of merchandise, as games like GTA (and the others you mentioned) license and sell everything. The number of people I directly or indirectly know who are waiting for career mode is larger than the number of people I know who already have the game. Even if only half of those people buy the game (at the higher price which will inevitably come with career mode) that will be a lot of money. Dev teams are expensive, but $40 purchases (just as an example number) compound quickly. 25 purchases at that price is already $1000. Especially with the international nature of this game, the income will increase substantially. If I am grossly misunderstanding the numbers, someone on the team can correct me. (I wish there was a way to ping the whole team or at least the site moderators - off to ideas and suggestions I go )
I wouldn't call having to buy a set of earbuds separate from your phone predatory... They support their devices rather well. I'm still rocking an iPhone SE and getting OS updates for it. I have at no point been forced to purchase anything to keep it running and have had 0 maintenance cost for the device. I can still use any app I want to, still have good battery life, still have all the features I paid for. I'd say that's really consumer friendly. Don't get me wrong, Apple has a lot to criticize and in general I don't really like them, but between the software support and hardware durability I see no reason to call the iPhone business model predatory. And Microsoft Office is very much a paid bit of additional content which is not necessary for the experience but also nice to have. It's analogous to a DLC. I don't call Cuisinart predatory because they released a pasta attachment for their mixer that I bought 10 years ago... It adds a feature and costs extra and 10 years ago when I bough the mixer I didn't know it would exist, but the value of my mixer and it's feature set has not degraded for the existence of the sold separately pasta attachment and I don't see an argument that I'm entitled to it for free. The devs did promise this, but it's completely irrelevant to the conversation. There is nothing that says the inclusion of paid additional content would halt free content. In fact it seems standard practice in the industry to release free updates alongside DLC releases nowadays. Cities Skylines has themed updates with mixed free and paid content, Wreckfest usually includes a new map and tournament content with every DLC they release, Snowrunner (which admittedly is the poster child for predatory DLC practices...) includes free and paid content with their season pass, etc...
Okay, I understand where you're coming from P.S. I'm happily surprised that your SE has lasted this long! Apple tends to try to force you to upgrade
I absolutely adore the 4S/5/SE gen 1, it's everything I need and nothing I don't. The headphone jack, size, and boxy styling are the big things for me. I admit I've had some close calls at times, and my network carrier absolutely hates me (now THAT is a predatory business model) but at the end of the day, like I said, I've never had even the slightest repair expense and it's still fully supported. I certainly was tempted by the iPhone 12 mini, but at $700 I'd rather buy a new guitar amp... Unfortunately I don't think my network carrier is going to let me keep it much longer, they've tried to force me to update phones a couple of times now and they've been getting a bit aggressive about it...
You could say I’m “rather pissed”. Seriously Nvidia, why did you neglect your consumers and will NOT give HU your reference cards because “AmD fAvOuRiNg”? I’ve never seen any HU’s videos, but to my understanding, he seems like he has a good channel. But why, in the name of pizza, would nvidia think about that because he made a point about AMD’s cards. The easiest thing Nvidia could do is look at the feedback, realize they made a stupid mistake, and call it off as a joke. I bet you my right big toe that the majority of people would say, “that was a bad joke” or “Oh you” and move on. If Nvidia doesn’t do something about this, something to make us feel better or reverse their action, which was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, like, what kind of drug must the person who wrote the email must’ve been on? Anyways, if they don’t do anything, then I would expect a revolt against them. I swear to literally everything, if someone harasses anyone at Nvidia, or anyone who bought an Nvidia GPU(which will hopefully be me soon), I will come into your house with a machine gun. I’m not saying I hate Nvidia, but the respect I had has gone way down. Edit: you know what? Forget everything you just read above(or below if you're Australian), if you don't know, Nvidia apologized to HU and undid the action. And I'm proud of them. OT: I had an IPhone 5, loved it, got an iPhone 6, hated it.
What's your guys thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077. Thinking that my mum should get it as she really enjoys the Witcher 3.
